So this has been.my favorite song of OTEP's since it came out in 2004, and I always thought it was a song about a child's narrative of suffering in an abusive Christian home. But now that I am revisiting the lyrics, I am seeing something totally new.
This song could be gospel of John but from the perspective of Jesus.
Jesus was NOT having a good time up to and during the crucifixion. Everyone in the known world at the time looked to him with fear, admiration or disgust and he was constantly being asked questions. He spoke in "verses, prophesies and curses". He had made an enemy of the state, and believed the world was increasingly wicked and fallen from grace, or that he was in the "mouth of madness".
The spine of atlas is the structure that allows the titan to hold the world up. Jesus challenged the state and in doing so became a celebrated resistance figure. It also made him public enemy #1.
All of this happened simply because he was doing his thing, not because of any agenda he had or strategy.
And then he gets scourged (storm of thorns)
There are some plot holes here but I think it's an interesting interpretation.
Dressed in Berlin black i was only playing
Disguise my words to fool you
From what I was saying mud trench
Meat stench the fatherland is looking on
Grip you in a Luger lock
This will be the big one
World war no one would believe me
No one's a winner no one's a loser
Just a dead friend
Heaven heaven give me pride
Give me a golden hand
Smash them with an iron rule
Spit them out like sand sit and wait
Then run like hell
Run like hell one time again
Sow the seeds of hate underneath destruction
World war no one would believe me
No one's a winner no one's a loser
Just a dead friend
World war no one would believe me
No one's a winner no one's a loser
Just a dead friend
Disguise my words to fool you
From what I was saying mud trench
Meat stench the fatherland is looking on
Grip you in a Luger lock
This will be the big one
World war no one would believe me
No one's a winner no one's a loser
Just a dead friend
Heaven heaven give me pride
Give me a golden hand
Smash them with an iron rule
Spit them out like sand sit and wait
Then run like hell
Run like hell one time again
Sow the seeds of hate underneath destruction
World war no one would believe me
No one's a winner no one's a loser
Just a dead friend
World war no one would believe me
No one's a winner no one's a loser
Just a dead friend
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The way this song speaks to me🥺🥺when I sing it I feel like I relate
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"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
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Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
not one of my favorites but, i still like it. Mr. Smith doesn't like it too much though . . .